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Final Choice
Final Choice is a sci-fi/thriller. Based on the research done, this story is not far from our reality. Some of the events are based on true experiences.
Five of twenty-eight patients, chosen by lottery, plan an escape from one of the deadliest experiments devised...ever. Bit by bit, they are joined by others. Some make it out. Some don't make it at all. And others become exposed to the scientific trial.
Throughout their journey, relationships are torn, betrayed, forged and tested. Those fortunate enough to get away face being sought by government officials, physicians of science and the militia.
There are heroes and villians...they just happen to be one and the same - as no one is perfect.
By the end of the adventure, many walls crumble.
Should they or can they be rebuilt? And who will survive to see that it does or does not happen?
The ride is fast, but there are some breathable spaces.
Watch for Final Judgment and Final Act to follow!
Five of twenty-eight patients, chosen by lottery, plan an escape from one of the deadliest experiments devised...ever. Bit by bit, they are joined by others. Some make it out. Some don't make it at all. And others become exposed to the scientific trial.
Throughout their journey, relationships are torn, betrayed, forged and tested. Those fortunate enough to get away face being sought by government officials, physicians of science and the militia.
There are heroes and villians...they just happen to be one and the same - as no one is perfect.
By the end of the adventure, many walls crumble.
Should they or can they be rebuilt? And who will survive to see that it does or does not happen?
The ride is fast, but there are some breathable spaces.
Watch for Final Judgment and Final Act to follow!
276 pages, Paperback
Published May 5, 2014
1 person want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 12, 2017
Set in a near-future society on the edge of collapse, this story explores a government sponsored initiative to control the population and modify their behaviours. A classic theme, but one that Rejena Bennett approaches from a new and intriguing direction, involving some deep metaphysical and religious questions, and with an interesting twist at the end.
Though the story premise is very powerful, I feel it is weakened by the narrative style the author has chosen. In essence, I found this a difficult and confusing novel to read.
At one point early in the novel, after meeting five characters who had just interacted and spoken to each other, the author ‘interrupted the story’ to give all five character descriptions, histories, and a list of ‘some’ of their individual names and ‘pet’ names. It felt like I’d stopped reading the novel, and was now getting a series of background notes to get me up to speed.
This floating and omniscient point of view tended to keep me at arm’s-length, with no deep feeling of connection to any of the story’s players. I felt this distancing was reinforced by what appeared to be the inconsistent use of the multiple names assigned to the characters. As an example, one character has seven versions of his name; Dr. Daniel Steven Charles, Daniel, Danny, Dr. Charles, Dr. Daniel Charles, Daniel Charles & Dan. There are even examples where variations in a character’s name are used in the same sentence. Adding to my confusion, there were also places where nobody was assigned ownership of a section of dialogue.
I also found it hard to absorb the dialogue as a realistic process, due to a consistent method used to identify ownership of a line of dialogue by embedding the previous speaker’s name into the next line of dialogue. I found it an unsatisfactory solution for longer sections of dialogue, as I was already in the process of absorbing the meaning and intent of the section of dialogue I was reading. In essence, I had moved on from the last line of dialogue; mentally and chronologically. Often, once I found out who had said the previous line, I had to stop time, step out of the scene, and go back and re-read the dialogue to be sure I understood each exchange. I found it a far from seamless activity.
At the start I found very little information to help me visualise the story world, and I got no real sense of the closer environment the events unfold in. I am a creature of visual stimulus, and without this staging, it made it hard for me to believe in and engage with the story. Some wider scene setting detail does appear later, but is added, from my perspective, ‘after the fact’, with the risk that it contradicted any scene information I might have assumed earlier.
In those story places that completely lacked the context of a stage for the performers to act out their drama, or their identities, I felt the story was reduced to disconnected voices emerging from the void. In those scenarios, and without authorial insight, often the first hint of who was speaking would come several lines into a conversation, with the method of embedding one of the previous speaker’s names in the speech. But in some instances, I still needed to read on a few more lines of dialogue to find out who the second speaker was. At that point I had a choice, keep going and hope I hadn’t missed or misunderstood anything, or go back and work out the sequence of who was speaking, backtracking through the lines of dialogue, mentally swapping the two known characters until I reached the first line of dialogue. Another ‘quicker’ method was to skip-forward through the dialogue to establish who was speaking, and where the events were taking place, and then go back to the start of that section and read it with this insight.
This constant uncertainty with the dialogue, point of view, character identity and setting, made it difficult for me to create good character personalities and location images to carry forward through the novel. In summary, there is a strong message at the heart of the narrative, but I personally found it hard to extract it from the page.
Though the story premise is very powerful, I feel it is weakened by the narrative style the author has chosen. In essence, I found this a difficult and confusing novel to read.
At one point early in the novel, after meeting five characters who had just interacted and spoken to each other, the author ‘interrupted the story’ to give all five character descriptions, histories, and a list of ‘some’ of their individual names and ‘pet’ names. It felt like I’d stopped reading the novel, and was now getting a series of background notes to get me up to speed.
This floating and omniscient point of view tended to keep me at arm’s-length, with no deep feeling of connection to any of the story’s players. I felt this distancing was reinforced by what appeared to be the inconsistent use of the multiple names assigned to the characters. As an example, one character has seven versions of his name; Dr. Daniel Steven Charles, Daniel, Danny, Dr. Charles, Dr. Daniel Charles, Daniel Charles & Dan. There are even examples where variations in a character’s name are used in the same sentence. Adding to my confusion, there were also places where nobody was assigned ownership of a section of dialogue.
I also found it hard to absorb the dialogue as a realistic process, due to a consistent method used to identify ownership of a line of dialogue by embedding the previous speaker’s name into the next line of dialogue. I found it an unsatisfactory solution for longer sections of dialogue, as I was already in the process of absorbing the meaning and intent of the section of dialogue I was reading. In essence, I had moved on from the last line of dialogue; mentally and chronologically. Often, once I found out who had said the previous line, I had to stop time, step out of the scene, and go back and re-read the dialogue to be sure I understood each exchange. I found it a far from seamless activity.
At the start I found very little information to help me visualise the story world, and I got no real sense of the closer environment the events unfold in. I am a creature of visual stimulus, and without this staging, it made it hard for me to believe in and engage with the story. Some wider scene setting detail does appear later, but is added, from my perspective, ‘after the fact’, with the risk that it contradicted any scene information I might have assumed earlier.
In those story places that completely lacked the context of a stage for the performers to act out their drama, or their identities, I felt the story was reduced to disconnected voices emerging from the void. In those scenarios, and without authorial insight, often the first hint of who was speaking would come several lines into a conversation, with the method of embedding one of the previous speaker’s names in the speech. But in some instances, I still needed to read on a few more lines of dialogue to find out who the second speaker was. At that point I had a choice, keep going and hope I hadn’t missed or misunderstood anything, or go back and work out the sequence of who was speaking, backtracking through the lines of dialogue, mentally swapping the two known characters until I reached the first line of dialogue. Another ‘quicker’ method was to skip-forward through the dialogue to establish who was speaking, and where the events were taking place, and then go back to the start of that section and read it with this insight.
This constant uncertainty with the dialogue, point of view, character identity and setting, made it difficult for me to create good character personalities and location images to carry forward through the novel. In summary, there is a strong message at the heart of the narrative, but I personally found it hard to extract it from the page.
Displaying 1 of 1 review